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Comment by meddlepal | Hacker News Reader

Google's two (maybe three) core Google-branded products to non-tech people are Search, Gmail and maybe Chrome. I don't think non-techies could even tell you what some of the other products are or did. I would also wager most people outside of tech don't realize YouTube is owned by Google.

Tech people pay a lot of attention to this stuff, but casual user's don't notice or don't care.

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I disagree. I know a lot of "non-techies" that switched to using iPhones just for iMessage because Google's messaging ecosystem is confusing and seems to change every 12 months. I also know a lot of non-techies that use Google Play Music to upload and manage their own music libraries. It's rumored that Play Music is going to be killed in the next few months as Google pushes YouTube music subscriptions instead. The problem is, just like with Inbox and Gmail, Google rarely ever makes good on promises to port features from old products to new ones. I highly doubt the Play Music users that specifically use it because they can upload 50,000 of their own songs are going to opt into a worse version of Spotify when it's killed off.

> Google's messaging ecosystem is confusing and seems to change every 12 months

Don't worry, they'll launch a new messaging platform that will definitely sort this out for real this time!

I know you're joking. That said, they're planning to use RCS, a successor of SMS. I guess the users will be expected to pay for each message or to buy a package. I also don't expect to be able to send from a web site, unless my phone is active and the message can be sent through it.

Just no. I'd rather use even WhatsApp than that.

Does anyone even use Google's messaging apps? I've literally not seen one being used once in the past 4 or 5 years.

It's been Whatsapp for as long as I can remember.

Non-technical people on Android definitely do because they either come preinstalled on the phone or they're heavily promoted/advertised. Even in my relatively small city I saw huge billboards and posters advertising Allo and Duo when they were released.

Your country and social group determine this.

Hangouts and Gchat before it certainly have been used by a lot of people. In my experience, it has gotten less popular since the Gchat days but I’ve never chatted to anyone on WhatsApp...

I'm dying to know more information about Google Music. I'm one of the people who uploaded their entire library up there, and while it vaguely exists as a backup of a 20XX version on a hard drive somewhere, losing access to it would be pretty crippling to my every-day listening.

I'm absolutely not interested in a Spotify-like subscription to a revolving library that I don't control; Google no longer letting me listen to music I upload will probably mean that I'm going to have to switch to something otherwise god-awful that prioritizes syncing my own library.

Can't wait to enjoy the iTunes experience of manually syncing music, except from someone even worse than Apple at writing that sort of software. Anyone got any recommendations?

I'm working on a self-hosted alternative to google music. The server part stable and the mobile apps are being actively worked on. Check it out here:

https://mstream.io/

Thanks, I'll look into it!

It's very expensive but check out Roon.

I don't think this is what I'm looking for.

> In the transition from physical to digital media, something has been lost. We have more convenience than ever, but no feeling of excitement or engagement.

> What you get is a searchable, surfable magazine about your music.

I don't want excitement or engagement, or a magazine. I want to listen to music on my phone.

Google Photos seems to be a core for non-tech people too. ...and actually, is one of my favorite products that they've released in recent years.

agreed, i know a good number of non-tech people that use Google Photos.

I think you're overlooking android, play, photos, docs, and drive.

You forgot probably their only actually good product: maps

Good at being a pathfinding and point-by-point navigation tool, not as an actual map. Their completely broken treatment of street and POI labels makes the product very annoying when trying to preplan a journey, get yourself oriented in a place you don't know, or evaluate alternative routes.

Especially when driving. Super thin, low contrast lines with hardly any labels at a weird angle make trying to read the map while driving super frustrating.

I have a Garmin unit mounted on my car windshield that comes on with the ignition, and the user experience is just so much better. The route lines don't blend in with the background and it has large labels that are actually readable. The low angle of the 3D map actually lines up with the view through the windshield, which compresses a decent amount of roads into a small space. Even the spoken directions are better (I've used British English Daniel for years, and I rarely notice when someone speaks in a British accent).

I don't often set a route, so it mostly functions as an always-present map, which it does exceptionally well. I especially like the banner at the bottom that shows the road I'm currently driving on and the banner across the top that shows the next cross street.

Any particular Garmin device you recommend?

Honestly, any of them. They're all good. The one I have is three or four years old, and it still works as well as it did when it was new, except for the battery (but it stays plugged in so that doesn't matter). I could easily keep using it for 3–4 more years if it keeps getting map updates. Every few months I plug it into my computer and leave it to update for a few hours (it's a one-click process), but I think some of the newer ones have Wi-Fi so they can auto-update.

It really depends on what features you want. I've found the voice commands to be quite handy. It has a hard time understanding some addresses, but for stuff like "go home", "turn down the brightness", "navigate to the nearest Tim Hortons", it's great. I wish mine had a built-in dashcam like the newer ones, but they're not cheap. Mine has Bluetooth as well, so it can get more frequent traffic updates from my phone (instead of through the FM receiver), as well as take speakerphone calls.

It's pretty much a single function device, which is perfect. I never have to mess with it, it's always there, and it leaves my phone free for audiobooks or for me to use if I'm in the passenger seat.

Yep! It's gotten worse and worse to browse as a map over the years. The earliest AJAXy versions were probably the best for that. I think they intend Earth for that purpose (they moved the great geo photo feature from Maps to there, for instance) but it's really heavy for that purpose, and the interface is clunkier.

It seems like another victim of Google's optimizing their products for one common use case and neglecting others. See also: search.

It gets worse every year. Like every 8 mos they add an extra thing you have to touch/click past to actually see the map. But maybe that's just the mobile app...

yea, now when i open it, half the screen is ads and off topic stuff that i have to close on mobile. frustrating.

ive found bing's maps to very good and user friendly, ive been switching over.

Maps the data is pretty useful, Maps the app is the worst app I regularly use

Last I checked, YouTube was/is kind of a big deal.

Rumors are that it is still barely above break even if that.

Perhaps, but finances aside, there's no questioning their outsize influence compared to just about every other video site, most of which have withered and died.

Meerkat, anyone?

Probably Google Drive as well.

Good point. Funny enough, the Google Drive desktop application was killed and replaced with Drive File Stream which broke the offline usefulness of Google Drive.

The file stream app still does the old drive behavior if you enable it.

Luckily, there's open-source tools for Google Drive, such as "grive".

The Drive File Stream app lets you pin files for offline use.

Disclaimer: I work on it.

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